Catherine knows she will end up in a wheelchair (Image: Alasdair Macleod/Daily Record)

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CATHERINE Martin could never stand on tiptoe or wear high heels – but she didn’t realise these were signs she would end up in a wheelchair.

The mum of three is one of 23,000 people in the UK who have the crippling Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease.

That figure includes her brother and may also soon include one of her own twin daughters.

Catherine, 45, from Castlemilk, Glasgow, was clumsy as a child but neither she or her parents thought it was anything worth bothering her doctor about.

Looking back now, she realises there were always signs she had the muscle-wasting disease.

But as the changes in her body happened bit by bit over a long period of time, she learned to adjust to things she couldn’t do.

She said: “I was really sporty as a child. I swam a lot and played basketball.

“ But by the time I was in my 20, I couldn’t run without falling over. But you just learn to adapt.”

CMT is a hereditary condition but none of Catherine’s family were aware of it until her diagnosis four years ago.

Since then, her brother Jamie, 53, has been diagnosed and one of her daughters is being monitored for it.

Catherine said: “One of my daughters is showing foot drop and clumsiness and she is being tested annually for any progression.

“But because they haven’t found my mutated gene yet, they can’t test my children for it.

“My mum has always been clumsy and she remembers one of her siblings wore callipers, although they were told that was because of polio.

“My gran had curvature of the spine, which is another indicator of CMT, so I’m pretty sure it comes from my mum’s line.”

Catherine admits while she is usually positive, she gets frustrated as she gets more immobile.

She said: “I just want to raise awareness of the disease because most people don’t know anything about it.

“People think you are drunk because you are swaying. People don’t realise how hard it is for you just to go out without them judging you.

“When you see their faces, you know it is not pity.

“I wear leg braces and my last ones were white so they were a lot more noticeable than the black ones I have now. I have had a few people trying to take the mickey.

“Sometimes, I just go home in tears.”

Catherine first realised she had a real problem when she fell through a wall and broke her wrist about five years ago because she was so unstable on her feet. She had to have surgery to put a plate and pins in her arm.

But she took an extremely bad reaction to the anaesthetic and had to be rushed to another hospital for emergency treatment.

CMT sufferers have to be monitored very carefully under anaesthetic or they can die. But because she had not been diagnosed, doctors did not know to take precautions.

Before Catherine’s wrist was healed, she fell again and broke the other one. And when she visited a physiotherapist for back pain, it was discovered she had problems with her feet.

As her toes had begun to claw, she had adapted by walking on the outsides of her feet, a tell-tale sign of CMT.

Catherine's turned in feet and clawed toes make it difficult for her to keep her balance

When she was 40, Catherine was diagnosed with motor neurone disease (MND). But a year later she was given her new diagnosis.

She said: “I was actually quite happy at first because I had been given a death sentence with MND. And while CMT is a painful, crippling disease which will see me end up in a wheelchair, I will live to see my three daughters grow up.”

However, living with CMT has been tough. She said: “It is almost as if my feet just don’t work. I have no feeling from my elbows and knees down.

“My hands have no sensation. I can’t tell hot and cold now. My hands are beginning to claw too.

“I do a lot of sewing and crafts. I dread to think how I’ll be if my hands get too bad and I can no longer do that.”

Despite her pain, Catherine fundraises and runs a Facebook support group for other sufferers.

She said: “I am very blessed I have the best mum and dad in the world and my husband and daughters are a great support.

“If they are walking on the sides of their feet and are always falling over, go to the doctor.

“It is incurable but the sooner it is diagnosed, the sooner you will be able to get them some help.”

Facts behind painful hereditary illness

CHARCOT-MARIE-TOOTH disease, also known as hereditary motor sensory neuropathy, is an incurable genetic condition.

It often has similar traits to motor neurone disease.

But unlike MND and muscular dystrophy, it is not fatal.Whereas with MND and MD the muscles waste, with CMT the nerves feeding the muscles don’t work and cause the wastage of the muscles.

CMT – named after three physicians who identified it in 1886 – is caused by mutations in genes which cause the peripheral nerves to become damaged. The peripheral nerves are a network of nerves which run from the brain and spinal cord and carry impulses to and from the rest of the body.

Peripheral nerves are responsible for the body’s senses and movements.